How to Become The Bachelor's Next Bachelor

Everything you need to know if you've decided this is your preferred strategy to find love.

With another season of The Bachelor underway and the franchise not looking like it’s going away anytime soon, many of you watching at home who are searching for the one might be asking: Do I have what it takes to be the guy who all the women yearn for on the show? How can I, too, search for a lifelong partner among 25 women who have been carefully pre-selected in hopes that they won't get along that well with each other?

Be a white guy looking for love? Yes, that would be helpful. But there’s more. Here’s a totally unscientific deep dive into what we’ve learned from 21 seasons of the show. If you’re looking to get cast as the next Bachelor…

You should probably have some kind of connection to sports.
A classic chicken-or-egg situation: Are most Bachelors sports nuts, or do most white guys in America love sports? This season’s Bachelor Nick Viall, a.k.a. the one guy who still wears a Livestrong bracelet, states in his bio that he enjoys beach volleyball and is a Green Bay Packers fan. Ben Higgins from last season declared himself an above average golfer who loves to be outdoors. Sean Lowe had a football scholarship to play at Kansas State University. Brian Flajnik has a golf handicap of seven. Chris Soules was into football and track, and lost his front tooth because it got caught in the net while he was trying to do a reverse dunk like Michael Jordan. (Relative to nothing, my favorite Chris Soules fact is he dated three sisters from the same family once. His explanation: “Arlington is a small town!”)

We’ve also had former athletes who have been the Bachelor, including Juan Pablo Galavis, a former professional soccer player, and Jesse Palmer, a former professional football player. So if you want to be on The Bachelor, consider having some jock in you.

But let’s be absolutely clear: There has never been an unemployed Bachelor. So if you’re gonna be the Bachelor, you do have to have a job. A real one. (Though let’s take a moment to appreciate Brian Flajnik the winemaker, who started making wine accidentally in his kitchen in Sonoma, California when he thought he was making grape jam, who also hates banana and mayo and has this all-time quote: “Math is not one of my strong suits, though Hugo Boss is one of my strong suits.” If that guy’s job counts, your job can count too.)

You actually might not need a popular generic-white-man name.
Through 21 seasons of The Bachelor, we’ve had two Andrews, two Bens, and two Brads—but other than that, we’ve had one Aaron, Alex, Bob, Byron, Charlie, Chris, Jake, Jason, Jesse, Juan Pablo, Lorenzo, Matt, Nick, Sean, and one Travis. While it might seem like most of those names are what all thirtysomething white dudes are named, we found using stats from Baby Center that only six past Bachelor names (Andrew, Jason, Aaron, Sean, Alex and Jesse) were part of the top 100 most popular baby names circa 1980.

So you might still have a shot even if your name is, say, the 349th most popular name among men born circa 1980—which was, uh, Brad. We believe in you, Brad!

Let’s take a moment to appreciate Brian Flajnik the winemaker, who started making wine accidentally when he thought he was making grape jam. If that guy’s job counts, your job can count too.

You should have a family, and talk about them whenever possible.
Viall is one of eleven siblings in his family. Higgins talked extensively about the close relationship he had with his parents. Soules is a fourth-generation farmer in Iowa who works with his dad and “loves his sisters, nieces, and nephews.” Brad Womack once said his two brothers are his best friends. (He also said the following two things, listed in order of amazingness: “I have one drug of choice: caffeine” and “I like to say I have no regrets, but I can’t.”)